open source *ware ideas!

Monthly Archives: September 2014

And now… (for the swecond time in the Garretlabs history, after a post about a problem on Raspberry B and NOOBS!) for something completely different! 🙂
I want to repeat the famous Monty Phyton refrain because this post isn’t a technical post, but a celebrative and a little (self) historical post. 🙂

All started approx. 30 years ago.

I started coding on my first computer (one beautiful Commodore 16), and in the meantime one movie entered the History (with the initial capital letter) by the main door.

The movie was “Ghostbusters” by Ivan Reitman, with a super-cast coming from the Saturday Night Live (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroid and Harold Ramis)…. but I loved also Rick Moranis and the mighty Sigourney “Alien” Weaver.

And I well remember (I was 9 -10, but I had always good memory) at the same time the fear and the humour of the movie. At that time it was a fabolous trip for me: the music, the special effects, the lightweight script, the ghosts….the videogame for the Commodore 64!
I think I bought (read: my father bought) the Commodore 64 only in order to play the mighty Ghostbusters videogame from Activision…in which there was the first “sampled voice” I never heard. Do you remember? Clicking the space bar one 8-bits electronic and destorted voice said “Ghostbusters!”…wow!!!! 😀

In the meantime I learned programming in BASIC and in ASM for the famous 6510 in order to create my first videogames…. So, when someone (especially if he/she is a “non technical person”, a sort of “Techno-Muggle” to say it in Harry Potter style!) today says to me that my experience on software started only with my first “official work” (approx. 15 years ago), well, I get pissed off as a boar (you are advised ;- ) ).

Returning to Ghostbusters…yes, I love very much this movie (and the videogame, of course)…and I’ve seen it again (…and again and again and again! 😉 ) across thirty years.
I think in the next days I will buy the new edition on double vinyl of the soundtrack (also if I know it note by note 😉 ).
But, for the moment, as you see from the photo, today the Ghostbusters (yes, me and Monica are also LEGO VIP collectors…now you know it! 😉 ) are here in my garret in order to help me to debug some “ghost” problem.

THe LEGO Ghostbusters arrived in Garretlabs!!!

Have you never encountered signalovershoot or undershoot problems, tied to the stabilization of addresses or data in memories? No? You are very lucky, man.You have an “unimplemented error code” trap in your software and, when the debugger blocks the execution, all values (addresses and data) are correct.ARGHHHHHH!!! 😦
I have often encountered these “ghost problems” (they are really bad… they are the real “poltergeists” of the microelectronics! 😉 ), at work but also in my garret adventures.
So, after thirty years the “chorus” is always the same, when from the sky is raining shit: “Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!”

..Hi, dear techno frieds (obviously male and female)!
My holidays unfortunately ended some day ago, and now it’s time to restart the work in my garret (and in the Garretlabs). It seems that your visits to my little blog during August increased…so many many many (many) thanks to you all! 🙂
Once returned from my vacation, my dear friend Luka Cekka (it isn’t his real name, so he isn’t a Russian guy, but a real Italian guy, and he is a “spitting image” of Tim Robbins in “Antitrust”…have you seen the movie? 😉 ) asked to me to realize a thermostat with touch screen for his new house thermo installation.

Once created the “sandwich” with Arduino, the breakout shield and the TFT, I connected to Arduino the DHT22 and the alarm led on the breadboard.
This is the Fritzing diagram (please, see the note and pay attention to the use of Arduino pins in order to drive the Adafruit TFT):

Regarding the software, I started using the following ad-hoc DHT22 library (and one very useful example found on internet) and verifying that the sensor was OK (and the alarm led ON/FF strategy).
Secondly, I added the code to manage the visualization of the temp on TFT, starting from the well coded examples from Adafruit libraries.
I decided to have two software modes: in the “temps” mode you can see the actual temperature acquired from DHT22. In this mode you can touch the software button “SETUP” on the touchescreen in order to enter “setup” mode. In “setup” mode you can adjust the alarm temperature using two software buttons on the touchscreen (one “+” button and one “-” button). You can return to “temps” mode touching the “TEMPS”software button. …All simple! 😉

Note that on the screen there are four temperature values: I’m now working on a more powerful application in order to match Luka request (he wants to use four DHT22 sensors in his house… I think I will use a input multiplexer with the Arduino UNO, or more simply an Arduino Mega! 😉 ).
But you can use this project in order to add the powerful Adafruit TFT touchscreen to your application.
Only two notes on the Adafruit TFT:1. the screen refresh is slow (very slow in my opinion), but it’s an acceptable issue in embedded projects2. the touchscreen is natively very sensitive to human touch, so if your touch is “too long” it will be detected as a multiple touch. You could implement some “low-pass software filter” (i.e. you could manage the touch only after a multiple touch).

Well boys and girls, now you have a thermostat with a touch screen for your hi-tech house. I hope Luka will be happy with his new toy (but I’m not sure..he is a very perfectionist guy! 😉 ).
…But attention friends, the touchscreen will record your fingerprints ;-), so clean it with attention…especially if you don’t like CSI! 🙂

Bye bye!

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